{"id":18311,"date":"2019-06-25T16:25:49","date_gmt":"2019-06-25T15:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=18311"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:56:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:56:04","slug":"de-la-rue-job-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=18311","title":{"rendered":"‘Short-sighted’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The announcement of 170 job losses at De La Rue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plant in Gateshead today (June 25) is being blamed on last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision by the government to give the post-Brexit passport printing contract to a French company.<\/p>\n

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Unite said today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loss of 170 skilled printing jobs working on the foreign currency contracts comes on top of the 100 passport printing jobs due to go in the autumn.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s short-sighted and blinkered decision to award the printing of post-Brexit UK passports, worth \u00c2\u0141490m, to French-Dutch firm Gemalto seriously undermined the financial viability of the Gateshead operation,” said Unite national officer Louisa Bull.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis flawed decision came home to roost today with the loss of 170 jobs working on the different types of currency notes that De La Rue produces.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis is devastating news for the workforce, their families and also for the north east economy which can ill-afford to lose such skilled jobs. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of printing jobs across the region and the employment opportunities for those losing their jobs are few-and-far between.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMost European countries regard the printing of passports as a national security matter which should be done in the home country.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHowever, we have a government which prioritises a rigid adherence to a right-wing outsourcing agenda before maintaining skilled printing jobs in the north east and guaranteeing national security.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAnd the final distasteful irony is that Gemalto has now outsourced the printing of UK passports to a Polish firm.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is clear that De La Rue is in financial trouble with its chief executive Martin Sutherland stepping down recently \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a situation made worse by the decision to print the post-Brexit blue passports abroad.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe company will argue that the cost of production in Gateshead is a challenge and it will be looking to place more of its contracts at its Malta operation. De La Rue also has plants in Kenya and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite will be doing all it can in supporting our members at this very difficult time and will continue to campaign strongly to keep vital printing work in the UK.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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There will still be about 200 workers doing currency printing at Gateshead, following the passport and currency printing losses.<\/p>\n

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The announcement of 170 job losses at De La Rue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plant in Gateshead today (June 25) is being blamed on last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision by the government to give the post-Brexit passport printing contract to a French company.   Unite said today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s loss of 170 skilled printing jobs working on the foreign currency contracts comes on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"wps_subtitle":"Latest De La Rue job losses blamed on loss of Brexit passport contract","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25184,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18311\/revisions\/25184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}